Gov. Mark Dayton said Thursday, Nov. 15, that Minnesota Vikings officials weren’t forthright during negotiations about the possibility that season ticket holders could be charged hefty new fees to help fund the new stadium.

While expressing optimism the dispute could be worked out, Dayton did not retreat from an earlier vow to fight the teams’ owners over the extra charges.

The stadium legislation passed in May authorizing the $975 million construction project says the team can issue “stadium builder’s licenses,” typically a one-time fee on top of normal season ticket charges. Other NFL teams have charged from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in such fees, and the Vikings raised the issue recently in a survey to season ticket holders as one possible way to pay for some of their $477 million share. The state and the city of Minneapolis are covering the rest of the tab.

On Tuesday, Dayton sent Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf a letter condemning the seat fee idea, saying it would make the new downtown Minneapolis venue a “Rich People’s Stadium.”

After a speech to educators in Plymouth on Thursday, Dayton said team officials didn’t bring up the high- dollar fee proposal during stadium negotiations.

“Not every card was face up on the table,” he said.

Dayton said he believed state and local officials involved in the negotiations assumed any such fee proposal would resemble a more modest seat-license plan such as the one employed by the Minnesota Twins, who charged $1,000 to $2,000 on a small number of premium seats in club areas. Dayton said he hopes the Vikings ultimately take that approach.

Vikings spokesman Lester Bagley took issue with the idea that team officials were less than open about the possibility of seat licenses.

“We went through 14 committee hearings, had discussions about stadium builder’s licenses with the governor’s negotiators,” Bagley said. “We were very forthright and very above-board and very clear.”

More than half of NFL teams charge seat license fees.

Bagley said that the team is still in the early stages of analyzing seat license fees and that any plan would be based on what the local market can support.

“This is not New York or San Francisco,” he said.

If the Vikings decide to proceed with a seat-license fee, the final decision on whether to allow it to proceed would likely rest with the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, a five-member panel created to oversee stadium construction and operations. Its members were appointed by Dayton and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who also opposes seat licenses. The governor said he was confident the panel would rein in excessive fees.

And while Dayton was optimistic that the authority and the team could reach a compromise, he again suggested that the issue could be revisited at the Capitol.

“If the authority doesn’t act in a way that I think is within the boundaries of propriety, then I have an option to go to the Legislature,” Dayton said. “Obviously I’d have to persuade the Legislature, and I’d rather not do that, get involved in all that tangle again.”

“They’ve obviously been very successful developers in New Jersey and that area,” Dayton said. “Maybe there’s one style of doing business there that’s effective. I think there’s a different style here that’s more straightforward and more mindful of the sensitivities of the community, and the need for good relations with the community.”

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in Sports

Glen Perkins’ 16-month comeback odyssey reached fruition Thursday afternoon as the decorated Twins reliever trotted in from the bullpen to pitch the ninth inning against the Cleveland Indians with a four-run deficit. It hardly mattered to Perkins, activated off the 60-day disabled list for his first big-league outing since April 10, 2016, that he was being eased back into the...

Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck spent eight minutes breaking down why he declared Thursday that both Demry Croft and Conor Rhoda will play in the season opener against Buffalo on Aug. 31. Whether the sophomore Croft or the senior Rhoda takes the first snap at TCF Bank Stadium will be inconsequential, Fleck said, and despite how one of them performs...

Max Kepler made up for his embarrassing miscue in memorable fashion. Shortly after his slip on the slick outfield grass allowed the tying run to score in Thursday’s doubleheader nightcap, Kepler cracked his 15th homer to lift the Twins to a 4-2 win over the Cleveland Indians at Target Field. That seventh-inning turnabout ended a 10-game home losing streak against...

Stephane Veilleux plopped down at a local Caribou Coffee last week and the memories of his near decade-long career with the Minnesota Wild came flooding back. He smiled when he talked about getting picked in the third round of the 2001 NHL Draft. That smile grew as he described his first career goal, which he proudly noted came against legendary...

St. Croix Central won’t forget last year’s surprising run to the Division 4 state title. The Panthers went 4-3 in Middle Border Conference play – the minimum conference record required to advance to the postseason – before going on a five-game tear through the playoffs. The run included a 21-14 upset win over Osceola, the MBC champion, and a last-second semifinal...